Perfect concealment and cover from sight.
Trenches and protection against both rifle and gun fire practically
ready made.
Communications under good cover.
The enemy would be out in the open veldt except along the river-bank,
where we, being in position first, would still have the advantage.
Plentiful water-supply at hand.
True, there were a few dead animals near the drift, and the tainted
air seemed to hang heavy over the river-bed, but the carcasses could
be quickly buried under the steep banks, and, after all, one could not
expect _every_ luxury.
As our clear field of fire, which in the north was only bounded by the
range of our rifles, was on the south limited by Waschout Hill, a
suitable position for the enemy to occupy, I decided to hold the top
of it as well as the river-bed. All I could spare for this would be
two N.C.O.'s and eight men, who would be able to defend the south side
of the hill, the north being under our fire from the river-bank.
Having detailed this party, I gave my instructions for the work, which
was soon started. In about a couple of hours the patrols returned with
their prisoners, which were dealt with as before.
For the post on Waschout Hill, the scheme was that the trenches should
be concealed much in the same way as described in the last dream, but
great care should be taken that no one in the post should be exposed
to rifle-fire from our main position in the river. I did not wish the
fire of the main body to be in any degree hampered by a fear of
hitting the men on Waschout Hill, especially at night. If we knew it
was not possible to hit them, we could shoot freely all over the hill.
This detachment was to have a double lot of water-bottles, besides
every available receptacle collected in the kraal, filled with water,
in anticipation of a prolonged struggle.
The general idea for the main defensive position was to hold both
sides of the river, improving the existing steep banks and ravines
into rifle-pits to contain from one to four men. These could, with
very little work, be made to give cover from all sides. As such a
large amount of the work was already done for us, we were enabled to
dig many more of these pits than the exact number required for our
party. Pathways leading between these were to be cut into the bank, so
that we should be able to shift about from one position to another.
Besides the advantage this would give us in the way of moving about,
according as we wished to fire, it also meant that we should probably
be able to mislead the enemy as to our numbers--which, by such
shifting tactics might, for a time at least, be much exaggerated. The
pits for fire to the north and south were nearly all so placed as to
allow the occupants to fire at ground-level over the veldt. They were
placed well among the bushes, only just sufficient scrub being cut
away to allow a man to see all round, without exposing the position of
his trench. On each side of the river, just by the drift, were some
"spoil" heaps of earth, excavated from the road ramp. These stood some
five or six feet above the general level, and were as rough as the
banks in outline. These heaps were large enough to allow of a few pits
being made on them, which had the extra advantage of height. In some
of the pits, to give head-cover, loopholes of sandbags were made,
though in most cases this was not needed, owing to the concealment of
the bushes. I found it was necessary to examine personally every
loophole, and correct the numerous mistakes made in their
construction. Some had the new clean sandbags exposed to full view,
thus serving as mere whited sepulchres to their occupants, others were
equally conspicuous from their absurd cock-shy appearance, others were
not bullet-proof, whilst others again would allow of shooting in one
direction, or into the ground at a few yards' range, or up into the
blue sky. As I corrected all these faults I thought that loopholes not
made under supervision might prove rather a snare.
The result was, in the way of concealment, splendid. From these pits
with our heads at ground-level we could see quite clearly out on to
the veldt beyond, either from under the thicker part of the bushes or
even through those which were close to our eyes. From the open, on the
other hand, we were quite invisible, even from 300 yards' distance,
and would have been more so had we had the whiskers of the "brethren."
It was quite evident to me that these same whiskers were a wise
provision of nature for this very purpose and part of her universal
scheme of protective mimicry.
The numerous small dongas and rifts lent themselves readily to
flanking fire, and in many places the vertical banks required no
cutting in order to give ideal protection against even artillery. In
others, the sides of the crooked waterways had to be merely scooped
out a little, or a shelf cut to stand upon.
In one of these deeper ravines two tents, which, being below
ground-level, were quite invisible, were pitched for the women and
children, and small caves cut for them in case of a bombardment. The
position extended for a length of some 150 yards on each side of the
drift along both banks of the river, and at its extremities, where an
attack was most to be feared, pits were dug down the river-banks and
across the dry river-bed. These also were concealed as well as
possible. The flanks or ends were, of course, our greatest danger, for
it was from here we might expect to be rushed, and not from the open
veldt. I was undecided for some time as to whether to clear a "field
of fire" along the river-banks or not, as I had no wish to give away
our presence by any suspicious nudity of the banks at each end of our
position. I finally decided, in order to prevent this, to clear the
scrub for as great a range as possible from the ends of the position,
everywhere below the ground-level, and also on the level ground,
except for a good fringe just on the edges of the banks. This fringe I
thought would be sufficient to hide the clearance to any one not very
close. I now blessed the man who had left us some cutting tools.
Whilst all this was being carried out, I paced out some ranges to the
north and south, and these we marked by a few empty tins placed on
ant-heaps, etc.
At dusk, when we had nearly all the pits finished and some of the
clearance done, tents and gear were hidden, ammunition and rations
distributed to all, and orders in case of an attack given out. As I
could not be everywhere, I had to rely on the outlying groups of men
fully understanding my aims beforehand, and acting on their "own." To
prevent our chance of a close-range volley into the enemy being spoilt
by some over-zealous or jumpy man opening fire at long range, I gave
orders that fire was to be held as long as possible, and that no man
was to fire a shot until firing had already commenced elsewhere (which
sounded rather Irish), or my whistle sounded. This was unless the
enemy were so close to him that further silence was useless. Firing
having once started, every man was to blaze away at any enemy within
range as judged by our range marks. Finally, we turned in to our pits
for the night with some complacency, each eight men furnishing their
own sentry.
We had about three hours next morning before any enemy were reported
from Waschout Hill (the pre-arranged signal for this was the raising
of a pole from one of the huts). This time was employed in perfecting
our defences in various ways. We managed to clear away the scrub in
the dry river-bed and banks for some 200 yards beyond our line of pits
on each side, and actually attained to the refinement of an
"obstacle;" for at the extremity of this clearance a sort of _abatis_
entanglement was made with the wire from an adjacent fence which the
men had discovered. During the morning I visited the post on Waschout
Hill, found everything correct, and took the opportunity of showing
the detachment the exact limits of our position in the river-bed, and
explained what we were going to do. After about three hours' work,
"Somebody in sight" was signalled, and we soon after saw from our
position a cloud of dust away to the north. This force, which proved
to be a commando, approached as already described in the last dream;
all we could do meanwhile was to sit tight in concealment. Their
scouts came on in clumps of twos and threes which extended over some
mile of front, the centre of the line heading for the drift. As the
scouts got closer, the natural impulse to make for the easiest
crossing place was obeyed by two or three of the parties on each side
of the one approaching the drift, and they inclined inwards and joined
forces with it. This was evidently the largest party we could hope to
surprise, and we accordingly lay for it. When about 300 yards away,
the "brethren" stopped rather suspiciously. This was too much for
some man on the east side, who let fly, and the air was rent by the
rattle as we emptied our magazines, killing five of this special
scouting party and two from other groups further out on either side.
We continued to fire at the scouts as they galloped back, dropping two
more, and also at the column which was about a mile away, but afforded
a splendid target till it opened out.
In a very few moments our position was being shelled by three guns,
but with the only result, as far as we were concerned, of having one
man wounded by shell-fire, though the firing went on slowly till dark.
To be accurate, I should say the river was being shelled, our position
incidentally, for shells were bursting along the river for some half
mile. The Boers were evidently quite at sea as regards the extent of
our position and strength, and wasted many shells. We noticed much
galloping of men away to the east and west, out of range, and guessed
that these were parties who intended to strike the river at some
distance away, and gradually work along the bed, in order probably to
get into close range during the night.
We exchanged a few shots during the night along the river bed, and not
much was done on either side, though of course we were on the _qui
vive_ all the time; but it was not till near one in the morning that
Waschout Hill had an inning.
As I had hoped, the fact that we held the kraal had not been spotted
by the enemy, and a large body of them, crawling up the south side of
the hill in order to get a good fire on to us in the river, struck a
snag in the shape of a close-range volley from our detachment. As the
night was not very dark, in the panic following the first volley our
men were able (as I learnt afterwards) to stand right up and shoot at
the surprised burghers bolting down the hill. However, their panic did
not last long, to judge by the sound, for after the first volley from
our Lee-Metfords and the subsequent minute's independent firing, the
reports of our rifles were soon mingled with the softer reports of the
Mausers, and we shortly observed flashes on our side of Waschout Hill.
As these could not be our men, we knew the enemy were endeavoring to
surround the detachment. We knew the ranges fairly well, and though,
as we could not see our sights, the shooting was rather guesswork, we
soon put a stop to this manoeuvre by firing a small volley from
three or four rifles at each flash on the hill-side. So the night
passed without much incident.
During the dark we had taken the opportunity cunningly to place some
new white sandbags (which I had found among the stores) in full view
at some little distance from our actual trenches and pits. Some men
had even gone further, and added a helmet here and a coat there
peeping over the top. This ruse had been postponed until our position
was discovered, so as not to betray our presence, but after the
fighting had begun no harm was done by it. Next morning it was quite a
pleasure to see the very accurate shooting made by "Brother" at these
sandbags, as betokened by the little spurts of dust.
During this day the veldt to the north and south was deserted by the
enemy except at out-of-range distance, but a continuous sniping fire
was kept up along the river-banks on each side. The Boer guns were
shifted--one to the top of Incidentamba and one to the east and west
in order to enfilade the river bank--but, owing to our good cover, we
escaped with two killed and three wounded. The enemy did not shell
quite such a length of river this time. I confidently expected an
attack along the river bank that night, and slightly strengthened my
flanks, even at the risk of dangerously denuding the north bank. I was
not disappointed.
Under cover of the dark, the enemy came up to within, perhaps, 600
yards on the open veldt on the north and round the edges of Waschout
Hill, on the south, and kept up a furious fire, probably to distract
our attention, whilst the guns shelled us for about an hour. As soon
as the gun-fire ceased they tried to rush us along the river-bed east
and west, but owing to the _abatis_ and the holes in the ground, and
the fact that it was not a very dark night, they were unsuccessful.
However, it was touch and go, and a few of the Boers did succeed in
getting into our position only to be bayoneted. Luckily the enemy did
not know our strength, or rather our weakness, or they would have
persisted in their attempt and succeeded; as it was, they must have
lost 20 or 30 men killed and wounded.
Next morning, with so many men out of my original 40 out of action
(not to include Waschout Hill, whose losses I did not know), matters
seemed to be serious, and I was greatly afraid that another night
would be the end of us. I was pleased to see that the detachment on
Waschout Hill had still got its tail well up, for they had hoisted a
red rag at the masthead. True, this was not the national flag,
probably only a mere handkerchief, but it was not white. The day wore
on with intermittent shelling and sniping, and we all felt that the
enemy must have by now guessed our weakness, and were saving
themselves for another night attack, relying upon our being tired out.
We did our best to snatch a little sleep by turns during the day, and
I did all I could to keep the spirits of the little force up by saying
that relief could not be very far off. But it was with a gloomy
desperation at best that we saw the day wear on and morning turn into
afternoon.
The Boer guns had not been firing for some two hours, and the silence
was just beginning to get irritating and mysterious, when the booming
of guns in the distance aroused us to the highest pitch of excitement.
We were saved! We could not say what guns these were--they might be
British or Boer--but, any way, it proved the neighborhood of another
force. All faces lighted up, for somehow the welcome sound at once
drew the tired feeling out of us.
In order to prevent any chance of the fresh force missing our
whereabouts, I collected a few men and at once started to fire some
good old British volleys into the scrub, "Ready--present--fire," which
were not to be mistaken. Shortly afterwards we heard musketry in the
distance, and saw a cloud of dust to the northeast. We were relieved!
* * * * *
Our total losses were 11 killed and 15 wounded; but we had held the
drift, and so enabled a victory to be won. I need not here touch upon
the well-known and far-reaching results of the holding of Duffer's
Drift, of the prevention thereby of Boer guns, ammunition, and
reinforcements reaching one of their sorely pressed forces at a
critical moment, and the ensuing victory gained by our side. It is
now, of course, all public knowledge that this was the turning-point
in the war, though we, the humble instruments, did not know what vital
results hung upon our action.
That evening the relieving force halted at the drift, and, after
burying the dead, we spent some time examining the lairs of the Boer
snipers, the men collecting bits of shell and cartridge-cases as
mementoes--only to be thrown away at once. We found some 25 dead and
partially buried Boers, to whom we gave burial.
That night I did not trek, but lay down (in my own breeches and
spotted waistcoat). As the smoke from the "prime segar," presented to
me by my Colonel, was eddying in spirals over my head, these gradually
changed into clouds of rosy glory, and I heard brass bands in the
distance playing a familiar air: "See the Conquering Hero comes," it
was they were playing.
I felt a tap on my shoulder, and heard a gentle voice say, "Arise, Sir
Backsight Forethought;" but in a trice my dream of bliss was
shattered--the gentle voice changed into the well-known croak of my
servant. "Time to pack your kit on the wagon, sir. Corfy's been up
some time now, sir." I was still in stinking old Dreamdorp.
* * * * *
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